All the excuses in the world…

This weekend I ran the Seattle Rock & Roll half marathon, taking me one step closer to my running goal for the year. My goal was to finish in an hour and 45 minutes, which would be 8 minute miles for 13.1 miles. I made the journey up to Seattle Friday morning getting the chance to meet up with some co-workers and friends so I would distract myself as the race approached. Learning from past races where I stayed at someone else’s house the night before a race, I went so far as to bring my own cereal and even ear plugs. Laugh as you’d like, but I have a pre-race routine that settles the nerves. Heck, I even had a plan on how we could drive to the starting line instead of relying on the race shuttles (which are crowded unless you get there really early).

I woke up Saturday morning excited to run. We made our way down to the starting area and found parking just as I thought. Then came the trouble. We waited what seemed like forever in a bathroom line. I didn’t get a chance to do a few light sprints before the race. As we made our way to the starting line we couldn’t get up front to my coral. As the race began I was feeling stiff, it seemed I stretched so long ago. We crossed the starting line and all of about 90 seconds into the race my iPod froze. Dam you Apple. 13.1 miles without music would be a death sentence. I live by my playlists in long races. At mile two I went to grab water, but instead got the sport drink which I hate during the race unless it’s a specific flavor. At mile 5 my world seemed to go into pure chaos. I found out that I had incorrectly programmed my watch and it was pausing every 8 minutes. By that point it was 5 minutes off from my actual race time. At mile 6 I grabbed water to toss over my head, but when I removed my hat I forgot my Oakley’s were there and they fell to the ground. As thousands of racers rushed toward me, I had to stop to pick them up. I’m sure there were a few other things that didn’t go my way, but finally I crossed the finish line with the race clock showing an hour and 49 minutes and a smile from ear to ear was all you could see on my face.

A few weeks back I said if our day is real bad sometimes we just need to get up and leave instead of enduring any more. I’m not trying to contradict myself here. Sometimes it’s not just one day. It’s a week or a month. Everything seems to not go our way or there seem to be too many obstacles from us achieving our goals. I’ve been in that rut and during this race, I realized I was getting too absorbed with the excuses that I could make.

You see that smile was so big, because I didn’t let those excuses get to me. I reset my iPod and figured out how it wouldn’t freeze again. Since my watch was off, I had my friend give me the correct time in correlation to the race clocks posted at each mile marker. My friend ran with me for six miles and just after that mile marker she screamed for me to start running my race. The weather was perfect, the course was spectacular and the decent at the end was priceless. As I reached mile 11 I knew I had more than enough time to finish the race and enjoyed 2.1 miles of time free running. If something is not making sense with my story, I apologize for teasing you. The race clock was just under six minutes off from my time since they had staggered starts, so I cleared my goal by a full minute and finished in an hour and 44 minutes. Success!.

The race woke me up to the problems I’ve been having with work. I’ve been letting the excuses be my focus instead of all the things that are going right and leveraging them instead.

All the excuses in the world ... should never stop you from achieving your goals!
Are you leveraging the good things or letting excuses get the best of you?